Send Inspections

An inspection is the primary object in the Truepic Vision platform. It represents a request for a customer to capture photos, videos, or answer questions — which are then reviewed by your team. This page explains how the component parts of an inspection fit together and how an inspection moves through its lifecycle.

Anatomy of an Inspection

Every inspection is assembled from several building blocks. Some come from preconfigured settings in the Vision Dashboard, and others are specified when you create the inspection.

Team

The team is the top-level frame for every inspection. It determines:

• Branding — your company logo and colors that customers see in the inspection app
• Sender phone number — the number used for SMS messages to customers
• Configuration settings — team-specific defaults that apply to all inspections created under that team

An organization can have multiple teams to support different business units or departments. When you create an inspection, you specify a team_id to control which team's branding and configuration apply.

Customer Information

Each inspection collects identifying information about the customer who will perform it:

• Name — provided as customer_first_name and customer_last_name, or as a single customer_name field if the inspection type has use_single_name_field enabled
• Phone number (customer_phone_number) — required when send_methods.text is true
• Email address (customer_email_address) — required when send_methods.email is true
• Address — the customer's address, used for location-based features such as the distance-from-address test

Send Methods

send_methods controls how Vision communicates the inspection to the customer. You can enable text, email, both, or neither by setting the text and email booleans on the inspection request.

Use send_methods in these common ways:

• Text only — set text: true and email: false
• Email only — set text: false and email: true
• Text and email — set both to true
• No automatic communication — set both to false

When both values are false, Vision still creates the inspection but does not send any message to the customer. In that case, you can use the inspection_link (the smart link that opens the inspection in the Vision app) from the inspection response and share it with the customer yourself.

Inspection Type

The inspection type acts as a template that controls most of the inspection's behavior. It is configured in the Vision Dashboard under Settings > Inspection Types and referenced by inspection_type_id when creating an inspection. An inspection type defines:

• Custom fields — one or more data fields specific to your use case (for example, a policy number or claim ID). Every inspection type requires at least one custom field, and you provide the values via custom_field_values when creating the inspection.
• Default list — the standard set of photos, videos, and questions for this type of inspection. You can use this default or override it per inspection.
• Message template set — the collection of text and email templates sent to customers at each stage of the inspection (new request, reminder to start, request more, and related message types).
• Alert configuration (optional) — rules that analyze test results and produce an automated recommendation (pass, warn, or fail) when the inspection is complete. See Alerts for details.
• Outcome set (optional) — a predefined set of outcomes (such as "Approved" or "Rejected") that can be assigned when closing the inspection. See Outcomes for details.

List

A list defines the specific tasks the customer must complete during the inspection — which photos to capture, which videos to record, and which questions to answer. Each item in the list can be marked as required or optional and can specify constraints like maximum captures.

Lists can come from two sources:

1. Inspection type default — the list configured on the inspection type is used automatically when you set include_list: true in the inspection request.
2. Per-inspection override — you can provide a custom list object in the inspection request to override the default. This is useful when the items vary per inspection (for example, listing specific vehicles by VIN).

Not every inspection requires a list, but most do. See Lists for examples of specifying custom lists.

Message Template Set

Message template sets control the content of every text and email sent to customers throughout the inspection process. They are configured in the Vision Dashboard and associated with the inspection type. Each set includes templates for different communication stages, including:

send_methods determines whether Vision sends text, email, both, or neither for a given inspection. The message template set defines the content used when those communications are sent.

• New Request — the initial message inviting the customer to start the inspection
• Reminder to Start — a follow-up nudge if the customer hasn't begun
• Request More — a message asking for additional photos, videos, or answers on an existing inspection

See Message Template Sets for the template types included in a set and how they map to inspection communications.

Alert Configuration

An alert configuration is an optional component assigned through the inspection type. It defines which Truepic tests (blurriness, device integrity, picture-of-picture, etc.) are evaluated, along with warning and failure thresholds. When the inspection is complete, the alert produces a recommendation — pass, warn, or fail — based on the test results.

Use alert recommendations to automate your review workflow: auto-close clean inspections, flag risky ones for manual review, or route them to specific queues. See Alerts for configuration details and example API responses.

Outcome Set

An outcome set is an optional component that defines which outcomes can be assigned when an inspection is closed. A common setup includes outcomes like "Approved," "Rejected," and "Needs Re-inspection." Each outcome can include a reason field for additional context.

Outcome sets are configured in the Vision Dashboard under Settings > Outcomes and assigned to an inspection type via an outcome_set_id. See Outcomes for details on closing inspections with outcomes.

Inspection Lifecycle

An inspection moves through a series of statuses from creation to completion: Scheduled → Created → Started → In Progress → Ready for Review → Closed. Inspections can also be canceled at certain stages or moved backward when more information is needed.

See Inspection Statuses for the full status reference, including status IDs, transition rules, and lifecycle details.

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